Café: Hybrid Work Scheduling Software

Introducing Café: A New Approach to Hybrid Work

Café is a recently established French startup, the brainchild of two brothers, designed to facilitate a smooth transition for companies adopting a hybrid remote-and-office work model.

Unlike conventional desk-booking systems, Café prioritizes people. The company’s core function is to provide visibility into team members’ office attendance, enabling better coordination of in-office workdays.

Focusing on People, Not Just Workspace

“Our decision was to avoid direct desk booking,” explained Arthur Lorotte de Banes, co-founder and CTO.

The application presents users with a streamlined calendar interface. Each day displays team members categorized by their work location – those in the office, those working remotely, and so on.

Streamlining Collaboration and Coordination

With just a few interactions, users can communicate their work plans to colleagues. This simplifies scheduling meetings, fostering in-person discussions, and generally enhancing team interaction.

It also greatly improves the ease of identifying mutually available days for collaboration on shared projects.

Addressing a Common Pain Point

“After speaking with just five companies, we discovered a recurring issue,” stated Tom Nguyen, co-founder and CEO. “We found that 150 companies were all relying on spreadsheets.”

Gaining Valuable Office Insights

Utilizing a tool such as Café provides data-driven insights into office usage. For example, it can reveal the average number of employees present in the office based on the day of the week or month.

Administrators can also set up weekly reminders to ensure consistent data input from all team members.

Seamless Integration with Existing Tools

Beyond its dedicated mobile and web applications, Café offers integration with commonly used platforms. Connecting your Café account to Slack, for instance, synchronizes your status, allowing teammates to quickly determine your location.

Hovering over a teammate’s name reveals whether they are currently in the office or working from home.

Future Integrations and HR Systems

The company is actively developing integrations with Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), like PayFit, to automatically synchronize vacation schedules with Café.

Timely Solution for Returning to the Office

As organizations formulate their return-to-office strategies, Café enters the market at an opportune moment.

Companies can define custom statuses to meet their unique requirements. One Café client, for example, created a status to track who possesses the office keys, ensuring continuous office access.

Seed Funding and Investor Support

The company successfully secured $1 million in seed funding from investors including 122West, Kima Ventures, Jonathan Widawski, Guillaume Lestrade, Jacques-Edouard Sabatier, and a group of business angels associated with companies like WeWork, Dropbox, Github, Snapchat, Intercom, Stripe, Alan, and PayFit.

Freemium Model for Accessibility

Following the example of companies like Typeform, Doodle, and Slido, Café employs a freemium pricing strategy.

Teams can sign up for free and begin utilizing the product with their immediate colleagues without providing credit card details.

Expanding Usage and Client Base

To deploy the solution across the entire organization with a larger user base, a paid subscription is required. Current clients include Livestorm, Jellysmack, and Yubo.

The startup anticipates that employees will champion the product throughout their organizations, a strategy well-suited for a tool designed to enhance employee satisfaction.